While Finch fumes, registrar Ayala defends herself

Published 10:26 pm, Friday, November 5, 2010

BRIDGEPORT -- While Democratic Registrar of Voters Santa Ayala worked Friday morning to finalize this city's belated election report, Mayor Bill Finch went on the offensive.

Before a row of television cameras with feeds in multiple states, Finch blasted Ayala and Republican registrar Joseph Borges for creating the election mayhem that started Tuesday afternoon.

"There was ineptitude on the part of the registrar's office," Finch said, referring to its decision to order just 21,000 ballots for Bridgeport's nearly 70,000 registered voters. "It was by no means a financial matter. There is no doubt Bridgeport has its financial issues, but I would never scrimp on making sure there were enough ballots."

Related Stories

"Did we order enough ballots? No," she granted. "But it wasn't ineptitude. There were many factors that contributed to us, and at least 12 other towns, running out of ballots."

Money placed near the top of Ayala's list.

In recent elections, she said, the registrar's office has ordered enough ballots for every registered voter in Bridgeport.

"But we have had cases and cases and cases of ballots that were never touched." Those ballots, she said, come at 45 cents a piece. "So we are paying for cases and cases and cases of ballots never used at 45 cents a ballot. So, yes, we also considered the financial factor."

According to Clifford Heintz, print manager at Adkins Printing in New Britain, which supplied Bridgeport and 130 other municipalities in Connecticut with ballots, there were a dozen or so towns that asked for extra ballots Tuesday. All but two of them, he said, did not "need" them.

Bridgeport, which was one of them, placed its order last, around 3 p.m., when the ballots at many precincts here were already running out. Before that point, he said, the city hadn't placed an order since its initial one of 21,000 ballots in late September or early October.

"When (Ayala) called, I asked her how many she needed," he said. "The conversation was something like, `As many as you can get me.' I sensed we were in trouble."

The initial order may have been fine had President Barack Obama not made a last-minute stop in Bridgeport, inspiring scores of voters, Ayala said. Yet she wouldn't say why a further order hadn't been placed on Monday or Tuesday morning, which Heintz said would have sufficed in acquiring enough ballots. Instead, she said, Borges and she will conduct an internal review of policy.

"This was a decision made by the Democratic and Republican registrars; a bad decision," she said. "And we are ultimately responsible."